Parents should avoid pressuring young children over grades, ASU study says

Parents should accentuate kindness and respect to help foster academic success.

High emphasis on achievement leads to lower GPAs, ASU study shows.

November 28, 2016

Compassion, decency just as important during the formative years, according to research

Suniya Luthar, ASU Foundation Professor of psychology

New research from ASU suggests parents shouldn’t obsess over grades and extracurricular activities for young schoolchildren, especially if such ambitions come at the expense of social skills and kindness.

Doing so, the study says, can work against helping kids become well-adjusted and successful later in life.

“When parents emphasize children’s achievement much more than their compassion and decency during the formative years, they are sowing the seeds of stress and poorer well-being, seen as early as sixth grade,” said Suniya Luthar, a Foundation Professor of psychologyThe Department of Psychology is a unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. at ASU and one of the co-authors of the study.

“In order to foster well-being and academic success during the critical years surrounding early adolescence, our findings suggest that parents should accentuate kindness and respect for others at least as much as (or more than) stellar academic performance and extracurricular accolades.”

The study, “When mothers and fathers are seen as disproportionately valuing achievements: Implications for adjustment among upper middle class youth,” is published in the current early online edition of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Luthar co-authored the study with Lucia Ciciolla of Oklahoma State University, Alexandria Curlee, an ASU psychology doctoral student, and Jason Karageorge, a psychologist in private practice in San Francisco.

The study focused on perceptions of parents’ values among 506 sixth grade students from an affluent community. Kids were asked to rank the top three of six things their parents valued for them. Three values were about personal successes such as good grades and a successful later career, and the other three were about kindness and decency towards others.

The researchers examined underlying patterns on scores based on children’s perceptions of their parents’ achievement emphasis (relative to children’s kindness to others). These patterns on perceived achievement emphasis were compared against the children’s school performance and actions as measured by grade-point average and in-class behaviors.

The authors tried to determine if there were differences in how children were doing psychologically and academically, depending on their parents’ values. They chose students entering middle school because of the immense changes that children experience at this stage, both physiologically and psychologically. Results showed that mothers and fathers perceived emphases on achievement versus interpersonal kindness played a key role in the child’s personal adjustment and academic performance, as did perceptions of parents’ criticism.

Specifically, Luthar said that the best outcomes were among children who perceived their mothers and fathers as each valuing kindness toward others as much as, or more than, achievements. Much poorer outcomes were seen among children who perceived either mothers or fathers valuing their achievements more highly than they valued being kind to others. These youth experienced more internalizing symptoms, such as depression and anxiety, externalizing or acting out behaviors and lower self-esteem, as well as more parental criticism. And paradoxically given their parents high emphases on achievements, these students also had lower GPAs, and were reported by teachers to have more learning problems and disruptive behavior at school.

The findings demonstrate the value of being socially oriented, Luthar said. “It is beneficial for kids to be strongly connected with their social networks, whereas focusing too much on external validations (such as grades, extra-curricular honors) for their sense of self-worth can lead to greater insecurity, anxiety and overall distress.”

What was surprising in the study, Ciciolla said, was how strongly children’s psychological and academic performance, consistently across a number of different measures, were tied to what children believed their parents cared most about. And it did not matter much whether both parents or either parent were thought to more highly value achievement than kindness to others — having disproportionate emphasis on achievement coming from either parent was generally harmful.

It was also surprising, she said, that children who viewed their parents as valuing kindness to others much more highly than achievement did not appear to be suffering academically.

“It seems that emphasizing kindness as a top priority may not take the spotlight off achievement, because we found that these children did very well over all, including in their academics,” Ciciolla explained. “But when children believed their parents cared most about achievement, possibly related to how parents communicated this message and if it came across as critical, they did worse across the board.”

“To be clear,” Ciciolla said, “our data did not show that encouraging achievement in itself is bad. It becomes destructive when it comes across as critical, and when it overshadows, or does not co-exist with, a simultaneous value on more intrinsic goals that are oriented toward personal growth, interpersonal connections and community well-being.”

“The key is balance,” Luthar added. “Not pushing kids to achieve or succeed at the expense of maintaining close relationships to others. And, we as parents must watch our tones,” she cautioned, “because sometimes, what we might think is encouragement to perform better comes across to our kids as criticism for not being ‘good enough’ by their standards.”

“The more parents are able to balance their encouragement of personal success with encouragement of maintaining kindness and personal decency, the more likely it is that children will do well,” she added. “This is especially true for kids in high achieving schools and communities where the reverberating message they hear from their earliest years is that above all else they must distinguish themselves as top-notch, or the very best, across their various activities, academic as well as extracurricular.”

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The No. 1 ranked university for innovation by U.S. News and World Report is now offering an Executive Master of Public Administration degree that features a Washington, D.C. component. It’s available to public administrators and other professionals around the world.Applications are being accepted for the first cohort of Arizona State University’s Executive MPA program. The ASU School of Public...

New ASU master’s in public administration features Washington, D.C. component

November 28, 2016

The No. 1 ranked university for innovation by U.S. News and World Report is now offering an Executive Master of Public Administration degree that features a Washington, D.C. component. It’s available to public administrators and other professionals around the world.

Applications are being accepted for the first cohort of Arizona State University’s Executive MPA program. The ASU School of Public Affairs is offering the degree in collaboration with the The McCain Institute for International Leadership. The new degree provides the flexibility of online courses taught by experts in their respective fields and features an in-person learning and networking component. Classes begins in May 2017. Ethan Kapstein, senior director for research at The McCain Institute, and Lt. General Benjamin Freakley (retired) talk to members of the McCain Institute’s Next Generation Leaders program.Download Full Image

“People in public affairs are increasingly feeling the need for tools to help manage the very complex problems that they face,” said professor Ethan Kapstein, academic director of the new executive MPA program and senior director for research at McCain Institute in Washington, D.C. "This degree is for people who aspire to leadership positions in public administration or who work at senior levels with government officials."

“It’s a collaboration among several top institutions,” said Karen Mossberger, director of the ASU School of Public Affairs. “Our school is ranked in the top five percent of public affairs schools by US News and World Report.”

“The McCain Institute for International Leadership brings together national and international decision-makers in Washington, D.C.,” she said. “W.P. Carey has one of the best online graduate programs in the nation. And Thunderbird School of Global Management has a long history of excellence in international management and top alumni around the world.”

The need for an executive MPA

Simply put, the challenges faced by government are much more complex these days. Managers who have succeeded through hard work and intuition find there is an upper limit to what they can achieve. That’s why “Master’s Degree in Public Administration” is increasingly required on job applications. Successful managers need the knowledge, critical thinking and decision-making skills gained through an MPA degree.

"Some senior administrators have reached their current levels without a master's degree and have done so through instinct,” said Hector Zelaya, director of the executive education center within the School of Public Affairs. “This degree will offer them a foundation so future decisions can be based on substantiated research and best practices. Graduates will not have to rely exclusively on instinct.”

"It will provide students with skills that they're going to need as they attain more senior leadership positions, so, it will make them more effective,” Kapstein said. “Increasingly, government positions require at least a master's degree in order to be promoted to that next level."

The degree is aimed at public sector professionals who aspire to leadership positions in public administration or who already work at senior levels in government in the United States or internationally. The program can also be valuable to those working in government affairs in the private sector or for professionals in non-governmental organizations.

"For some of them, this degree will be an opportunity to advance within their current career track,” Zelaya said. “For others, this is an opportunity to switch career paths."

A minimum of five years of progressive leadership experience is required of applicants. Admission will be based, in part, on what kind of experience each student brings to the program.

“Our decision to admit a student will take into consideration the value that they're going to bring to the learning experience of their classmates,” Zelaya said.

Hector Zelaya, director of executive education at the ASU School of Public Affairs, congratulates a graduate of the Bob Ramsey Executive Education program at Arizona State University.

How it works

The new ASU degree is designed to maximize the advantages of online learning and face-to-face sessions.

“While courses take a global perspective, they will be useful for all public sector leaders,” Mossberger said. “You will study with other experienced colleagues, and benefit from working together with your peers as well as distinguished faculty from top-ranked programs.”

The 19-month executive MPA program will begin in May 2017 with an orientation and executive sessions in Phoenix.

"The executive sessions are geared toward helping establish relationships among students,” Zelaya said. “This is a cohort model. Every student is going to take each class together in sequence.”

Students will take one course at a time, and the first course will start after the orientation session. Each course is six to seven and a half weeks long, and some are scheduled during summer months by design.

"We really took into consideration the workload of the people we anticipate taking this program and we are making the assumption that their workloads are lighter in the summer," Zelaya said.

Executive MPA students will take traditional management classes such as Organizational Behavior, Leadership in Public Organizations and Ethics. But they will also benefit from specialized courses such as E-Public Administration, Data Analytics for the Public Good and Global Negotiations.

"Public administrators at this level need a bit of a business mindset so we are making sure that we include faculty from Thunderbird and W.P. Carey,” Zelaya said. “And it's intentional that the faculty member from Thunderbird, a world-renowned international business school, is going to be doing the course on international negotiation.”

Students will have the chance to meet government leaders at another round of executive sessions held in May 2018 at The McCain Institute in Washington.

A McCain Institute Debate and Decision Series event held in Washington, D.C. in October 2016.

“It’s the only program I can think of where people will be exposed to national, state and local level leadership,” Kapstein said. “The McCain Institute will play a role in organizing the Washington sessions and bringing in senior officials to discuss the challenges they're facing with the students.”

Students will wrap up classes in October 2018 and began work on an applied project. They will present their applied projects in Phoenix in December and have the opportunity to take part in Fall 2018 commencement days later.

“This is a new and different way to get a master of public administration, combining flexibility and some really unique opportunities, including an exciting Washington experience,” Mossberger said. “The executive MPA program at ASU is an exciting new way to get your degree.”